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Monday, January 2, 2012

FTM2012 - Sources Clean Up - Sources without Citations

Every once in a while, I find it helpful to Clean Up information that I in my family file. My main research file was started with Family Tree Maker Version 3.4. It's been through each version and patch since. Not to mention, the learning curve in learning how "the new version" works. Things like doing a Merge of two files, before I knew what I was doing.

My goal for 2012 is to clean this file up. It will probably take a year to do so, but it needs to be done.

A short time ago, I talked about a new feature that was added in a Patch for FTM2012. FTM2012 Patch - New Feature - Undocumented Facts in which you can generate a report for all Facts that do not have a Citation linked to them. Its a very handy report. My smaller files are very clean. Running that report on this file is 462 pages long. Not going to print that. To get that report, go to the Publish Workspace, Sources Category, and select Undocumented Fact.

There is another way to do the same thing, but in smaller pieces, like in Surname Order / by letter. By going to the Sources Workspace, there are several ways to list the Sources as seen in the pull down menu under Source Grouping, Listed by: The choices are Source Title, which is the default listing, by Repository, or by Person.

We're going to start with the default, or Source Title: Notice the ICONS or lack of ICONS to the left of the Source Title. If there is NO ICON, there is not Citation. Basically, that Source is not being used in this file. By looking to the right, you will see Source Citation: 0.

That Source can be deleted by Right Clicking on the Source Title:

There are other options there as well, but we will Delete that Source.

Where to get Help

A Blog is not a very helpful place to troubleshoot a problem with Family Tree Maker. There is plenty of help, in the Help Menu of the program that is specific to where you are in the program; In the Help Menu, there is a link to the Knowledge Base website, called Online Help Center.